We Are All Pentecostal Christians: Sermon for the Day of Pentecost

You may not realize it, but right now, we are worshipping in a Pentecostal Church. The Episcopal Church in general is, among many things, Pentecostal. Christ the King Episcopal Church in particular is, among many things, a Pentecostal Parish. Now, before you head for the exits, let me explain why I believe this claim to be true.

The first reason is that all Christian churches are Pentecostal by their very existence and nature. The gift of the Holy Spirit was initially received in the Upper Room when Jesus first appeared to his disciples on the evening of the resurrection and “breathed on them.” But the Day of Pentecost is when we celebrate the moment when, as we heard from the Book of Acts, “there came [from heaven] a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and… divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them… and... all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit…”

 And since that first Pentecost, all baptized Christians are Pentecostal Christians, and all Christian Churches are Pentecostal Churches, because we only stay alive by the power of the Holy Spirit breathing in and through us. In a similar way, any church that reads and preaches from the Bible can be called a “biblical,” or “Bible-based” church. So go figure, somehow – and I’d say it is through the power of the Holy Spirit, we have all landed in a biblically-based, Pentecostal, Bible Church this morning. But aside from what I have already said about the criteria for being Pentecostal, what does that label really mean for us today?

 Holy Scripture and the Christian Tradition refers to the Holy Spirit as the Comforter and the Advocate. I understand these two labels as holding in a healthy tension the Holy Spirit’s gifts of binding us together in unity while also sending us out – dispersing us – to do the work we are called to do.

 St. Irenaeus, who served as the Bishop of Lyons in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries, described the Holy Spirit as being like “dew from heaven.” He points out that in the story from Acts, “people of every language and scattered tribes joined in singing one song of praise to God, as were offered as the firstfruits of all the nations.” But Irenaeus likens these first Christians – and us - to “dry flour, which cannot become one lump of dough, one loaf of bread, without moisture…We who are many could not become one in Christ Jesus without the water that comes down from heaven. And like parched ground, which yields no harvest unless it receives moisture, we who were once like a waterless tree could never have lived and borne fruit without this abundant rainfall from above. Through the baptism that liberates us from change and decay we have become one in body; through the Spirit we have become one in soul.”

 I love how Irenaeus brings us back to our baptisms with this image. The element that I most associate with Pentecost is fire – the tongues of fire that rested upon those disciples on the first Pentecost. An indeed, fire is an appropriate symbol for the Holy Spirit. But Irenaeus wants us to remember the waters of baptism, and beautifully points out how water is needed to make a unified loaf of bread out of dry, formless flour. As such, God the Holy Spirit serves as our Holy Comforter, binding us together into one body, one community, loving and supporting one another in our new identity as the Body of Christ.

 But God the Holy Spirit not only binds us together. The Holy Spirit empowered those first Christians to be dispersed – to go out into the world proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ to every tribe and every nation of the world. This dispersal is likened to the dispersal we heard about in our first reading from Genesis with the Tower of Babel. But while the dispersal of God’s people in the Tower of Babel story almost seems like a punishment of sorts – or at least a means for humbling them – the dispersal of God’s people we see in the Book of Acts is a result of being rewarded by the gift of God’s Holy Spirit. But in this dispersal, the disciples would no longer have the security of their original community. They were being separated and sent out in different directions with the call to spread the Good News as far and wide as possible. But because of this separating – because the loaf of bread was being sliced up so to speak – God the Holy Spirit would need to be with them always, serving as their Advocate on the journey. Those disciples likely remembered back to when Jesus said to them, as recorded in our Gospel lesson for today, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth…You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you."

 Of course the Pentecost story, with God the Holy Spirit binding up and sending forth – Comforting and Advocating – is not just about what happened a long time ago. It is our story too. Every time we gather together as a body for worship, we are bound together by the Holy Spirit. The dry flour of the liturgy, music, scriptures, prayers, and the congregation are held together and formed by the moisture of God’s Holy Spirit. Here, we are being comforted in the familiarity and stability of the church’s tradition and community.

 But remember, being Pentecostal isn’t only about being bound together. It is about being sent forth into the world, empowered by God the Holy Spirit. I refer to the prayer that immediately follows Holy Communion as the “Prayer for Mission” because after thanking God for feeding us with the spiritual food in the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and Blood, we boldly ask God to “send us now into the world in peace.” Some people have asked me why we refer to the final hymn as the Processional Hymn. Since it is the final hymn of the service, many are used to referring to it as the Recessional Hymn. But we are not being released for recess. Having heard and proclaimed the God’s Word in scripture, and having been nourished by the Eucharist, we processing into the world – we are going forth with a mission and a purpose to share what we have just received with others.

 And our Dismissal reflects the missional, Pentecostal nature of our worship service as well. The Prayer Book includes these three dismissals: “Go in Peace to love and serve the Lord” or “Let us go forth in the name of Christ” or “Let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.” That’s not recess, that is Pentecost! Baptized in water and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are a Pentecostal Church and we are a Pentecostal people. Empowered by our Holy Comforter and Advocate, let us go forth and boldly claim, embrace, and embody our Pentecostal identity. The world needs this to be so, and so do we.